


disconnect

by someawkwardprose



Category: DCU, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Other, Post-Season/Series 01, Unreliable Narrator, What Happened To Barry?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 06:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8737882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someawkwardprose/pseuds/someawkwardprose
Summary: When Barry Allen escaped the singularity, he left the Flash behind.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this has been languishing on my hard drive for like, three months. there's no spoilers for anything past s02e01
> 
> um, Barry isn't really okay. I don't think there's anything too triggering, but he's really not in a good place, so be warned.

_[scarlet seeping across Eddie’s shirt, like spilled ink on crisp white paper, and all he can hear is Iris, screaming, and Eddie, Eddie, EDDIE]_

Thin fingers carding through his hair, sharp nails scratching at his scalp. Iris’ hands are always cold, she can never get her fingers to warm up. She’d slide them up Eddie’s shirt on chilly days, because Eddie always ran hot.

The fingers still, and he shifts, turning his head to look at her. She smiles down at him, a fragile, trembling thing, and resumes the movement, but now he knows something’s wrong.

Before, before the singularity, before Harrison Wells was revealed to be Eobard Thawne, before the lightning, he’d would try to comfort her. He’d slide his arms around her thin frame, let her cry about whatever was bothering her into his shoulder. But it is not before, and he is not that person anymore.

Talking, now, is hard. But its Iris. He has to try for Iris.

“I-Iris?” His voice is rough from disuse, thin and reedy. “You-okay?”

Her smile comes back, this time stronger, and it almost reaches her eyes. It’s something he’s become more familiar with, in the past few weeks, and he scrambles and clings at the memories of Before, when her smile would light up her whole face. He can only remember little details now, the flash of white from her teeth, the way her nose crinkled before she burst out in laughter, bright and cheerful, but it’s fading. She’s fading.

“Yeah, Bar. I’m okay,” He buries his face into her stomach, and listens to the little hitches of her breath, trying to ignore her watering eyes. “We’re okay.”

* * *

 

_[the singularity is open, it’s wide, gaping maw, threatening to swallow Central City whole, and he’s running, running, running, and it’s Ronnie, no, Firestorm, Ronnie and Doctor Stein, and they’re falling, and he grabs Stein but Ronnie is still in there, and he’s going down,]_

“How was he today?” The voice is quiet, but it still startles Barry, as the silence in the room is broken. They must think he’s asleep.

He listens to Iris’ breathing, lighter, somehow, than the speakers. His head is lying on her shoulder, gently lifting with every inhale. He could fall asleep like this – has, before. But he isn’t, not right now.

“I’m not sure,” she replies, whisper-quiet. He should let them know, that he’s awake. That they don’t need to worry about disturbing him. “He spoke, a little. Asked me how I was.”

The room is silent again, just the breathing of its three occupants. The covers are pulled up around his shoulders, a palm resting lightly on the sharp curve of the joint. A thumb rubs gently, before releasing him.

“You heard what Doctor Snow said,” The voice is rough with emotion. “It takes a while for the mind, to, you know. Fix itself. He’s getting better.”

Iris releases a long, shuddering breath, catching the others’ hand, squeezing, and threading her fingers through Barry’s.

“I know. It’s just-”

“I know. I miss him too.”

Barry nearly drifts off, in the pause that follows. It lasts long enough that his mind is drifting, away, back into the black hole.

“What if we never get him back, Dad?” Iris’ voice hitches, and he knows she’s crying, can almost see the tears sliding down her cheeks. But Barry isn’t expected to do anything here, isn’t sure he can help. Beside, Joe’s here. Joe will help her.

“Then we do what we’ve always done. We take care of him.”

* * *

 

_[his Mom, screaming, while Barry-future Barry, shakes his head and saves himself, and he’s watching her, watches Wel-Eobard, hurt her, kill her, and he’s crying, as she bleeds to death on the floor of his childhood home]_

 “Hey Bar, me and Iris have to go out. Can you keep Cisco company for a while?”

Joe isn’t really asking Barry, he knows. They’d already talked at the door – not realising Barry could hear them.

[ _“I’m sorry, Cisco, I know this is really short notice, but Francine-”_

_“Joe, it’s okay, you’re allowed to have a life. You and Iris. Besides, I’ve been meaning to spend some time with him, anyway.”]_

Barry doesn’t reply, but he’s pretty sure Joe isn’t expecting one. The older man simply sighs, and presses a kiss to Barry’s brow, sweeping slightly too long hair out of his eyes.

“I’ll see you when I get back, son,”

And then he’s gone, leaving Barry alone on the couch, comforter bunched around him. He isn’t alone for long, though, as Cisco comes out from the kitchen, carefully balancing two steaming bowls of soup. He places them on the table in front of Barry, settling onto the couch beside him, blowing gently into his bowl to cool it down. It smells of chicken noodle, of Joe’s secret recipe.

“So, what are we watching? Oooh, Harry Potter!” His friends voice is so cheerful compared to what he’s been hearing from Joe and Iris for the past month, but it has a fake note in it, as if he’s trying too hard.

Barry says nothing. The silence is awkward, and the smell is starting to get to him. Nausea curls in his throat, even as his stomach rumbles. Cisco turns his head to him.

“Soup should be cool enough, now.” When Barry doesn’t move, he continues. “I’ve missed Joe’s cooking. Not quite as good as my Mom’s, but boy, it is up there…”

Barry still doesn’t twitch, still staring aimlessly at the TV. He can feel the tension in the room shoot upwards, but he can’t help it. He hates that he can do nothing, can’t be the Barry Cisco wants, Joe wants, Iris wants, the Barry they all expected to come out the worm hole.

“Barry, c’mon. You gotta eat man.”

“Not hungry.”

“Barry-”

Barry just- _explodes._ He isn’t even sure what he does. All he knows is that when he comes too, is that the bowl lies shattered, on the floor, the liquid inside spilling over the carpet, and the sharp pain in his hand, where a shard is imbedded in his skin. The splash of red on his too pale skin fascinates him, and he sits, trembling at the centre of the chaos. Cisco’s voice reaches him through the haze he’s fallen into, and he drags his eyes up to his friends terrified expression.

“Whoa! Hey, okay, okay, okay, no food, yeah, I got it. Jesus – your hand, shit gotta – no, Joe’s busy, okay, Barry, we’re gonna call Caitlin. Okay? She’s going to have to stitch up your hand, bro.”

Barry barely reacts as Cisco helps him up, stumbles into the kitchen, towards the sink. They should take out the shard, before he heals around it, he thinks, distantly, before he remembers. He won’t.

He’s vaguely aware of his legs collapsing under him, before he blacks out.

* * *

 

  _[the screaming, the horrific scene around him, as he gets sucked back in, as he pushes Dr Stein to safety. Iris, Caitlin, Joe, they’re all yelling, as Cisco pulls the old man to his feet and the world disappears around him]_

Catlin snips the end off, and smiles at Barry.

“There we go. All better.” Barry nods mutely. It hadn’t needed many stitches, but he still finds it unusual to need them at all.. He hadn’t had his powers for very long, but he had grown so used to them being there. He wonders if he’ll scar now.

Caitlin brushes the hair from Barry’s eyes, and stands, walking over to Cisco, and mutters quietly. He could hear them if he tried – should, because he knows they are talking about him. But he can’t find the motivation, and sits blankly, staring at the muted television.

Caitlin looked – looks so impossibly sad, as if a void as big as the singularity had opened up inside her, and swallowed all of her happiness away. He supposes that that’s pretty accurate. The singularity had taken Ronnie away. _He’d_ taken Ronnie away.

“I don’t know! I just offered him the soup, and he- he just lashed out!” The rise in Cisco’s voice drags his attention back to the two ex-STAR Labs employees. 

“There must have been something – a trigger, or-”

The voices fade out of his hearing again, and he doesn’t bother to listen in.

* * *

_[Eobard’s hand, quivering, ready to kill him, and the shot rings out, impossibly loud, and Iris screams, and when Barry looks over he can see Eddie still upright, but the wound lets Barry know the detective is a dead man standing,]_

“What do you think he saw? On the other side, I mean,” Joe asks Caitlin when Barry is curled up under the sheets of his cold bed.

Caitlin can only shake her head and shrug helplessly, and it’s got to be killing her, but she’s a scientist, and she can only draw conclusions based off data, and there’s no data to back her assumptions up with.

“I don’t know, Joe. I can’t even be sure that what he seen caused this – this catatonia. We’re assuming PTSD, but it could have just as easily have been the violent way that the speedforce was ripped from his system. I just…I don’t know.”

They stop talking, and Barry listens as the minutes pass, the clock in the background ticking away.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

“Why don’t we ask him then?”

“Iris-”

“No, Dad. Caitlin doesn’t have any answers, Doctor Stein doesn’t have any answers, nobody does. The only one who can tell us is him.”

Joe walks her out of the room, with Caitlin in tow, who looks sadly back at Barry before she follows the West’s. The door closes behind her, but does nothing to muffle the raised voices in the corridor. It’s – soothing, almost. Hearing them shout. Iris and Joe used to have some awful screaming matches, when Barry and Iris were kids. It reminds him of his first year, after his Mom died, sitting in his room, listening to them, reminding him that he wasn’t alone.

Then suddenly the voices cut off. Caitlin’s ‘doctor’ voice, calm and detached. The door swings back open.

“Barry?”

He looks up, and it’s Iris, looking concerned, but there’s a determination in her eyes that Barry hasn’t seen on a while. Behind her, Joe is shaking his head, but she resolutely ignores her father. He looks away and hums as he picks at the comforter with his uninjured hand, to show he’s listening.

“Bar, this is important.” He looks back at the room, sees the pinched look on Joe’s face, the way Caitlin is braced for trouble. Cisco, too, in the doorway, lurking, as if unsure of his welcome. Iris, right in front of him. Iris, with a fire in her he had almost snuffed out. Iris, biting her lip before making up her mind. Iris, Iris, Iris.

“Why did you stop running?”

_[the swirling void encompassing him, surrounding him, the screaming of a thousand voices, Ronnie’s face, an expression of sadness and Caitlin’s name on his lips, Eddie, stained shirt and an agonized call of Iris_ , _his Mom, hand on his face, terrified for him,_ run, Barry, run! _]_

**Author's Note:**

> be gentle with me its my first time


End file.
